Gold and silver’s historic price rises are raising questions about the broader state of the world.

For Mark Moss, the surges reflect a deeper breakdown of trust in sovereign currencies.

“The real driver is not inflation,” the investor and commentator emphasized during a fireside chat at the recent Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. “The real driver is trust.”

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Many investors remain focused on short-term price signals and conventional indicators, such as real interest rates, while overlooking deeper forces shaping capital allocation. According to Moss, the current state of the market favors long-term allocation. In his view, conviction — not timing — should guide investment decisions.

“You can’t borrow someone else’s conviction,” he said. “You have to start to learn to build your own thesis, and then you have to learn to look to find things that either confirm that thesis or deny that thesis.”

Precious metals are continuing a powerful price rally that began last year.

The gold price broke above US$5,500 per ounce for the first time on Wednesday (January 28), while silver broke through the triple-digit level last week and has continued rising, passing US$119 per ounce.

These moves are happening amid escalating geopolitical and policy uncertainty. However, Moss cautioned against focusing on shorter-term gold and silver price drivers, instead pointing to what he described as a fundamental dilemma facing governments with rising debt burdens — a dynamic he said is reshaping global capital flows.

Referencing comments by hedge fund founder Ray Dalio at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Moss described a “rock and a hard place” scenario. Governments face a choice between allowing debt crises that risk defaults and asset collapses, or continuing to expand money supply in ways that erode purchasing power.

“Either they have option one, the rock, which is a sovereign debt crisis, asset prices plunging — that’s what everybody’s kind of thinking. The markets are going to crash. My home values, my retirement value is going to crash. But the problem with that is they lose everything. They get wiped out, they have massive civil unrest,” he said.

“And then the hard place is they can print the money. And so of course, they’ll always choose to bring the money.”

As a result, large institutional and sovereign investors face losses whether governments default or inflate, prompting a reassessment of traditional reserve assets. Moss said gold has emerged as one response to that reassessment, alongside broader interest in commodities and critical minerals. He further pointed to continued central bank gold buying as a signal that confidence in fiat currencies and the post-war financial order is weakening.

According to the World Gold Council, central banks have been purchasing gold at record levels in recent years.

Moss cited Poland as a notable example, describing it as a close US ally that has nonetheless been…

It’s been a historic week for precious metals, with gold nearly hitting the US$3,600 per ounce mark, and silver passing US$41 per ounce for the first time since 2011.

The gold price spent the summer in a consolidation phase, and part of what’s spurring its latest move is expectations that the US Federal Reserve will lower interest rates at its next meeting.

The central bank has held rates steady since December 2024, even as President Donald Trump places increasing pressure on Fed Chair Jerome Powell to cut.

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Powell’s August 22 speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, began stoking anticipation of a cut, and August US jobs data, released on Friday (September 5), has all but guaranteed it will happen.

Non-farm payrolls were up by 22,000, significantly lower than the 75,000 expected by economists. Meanwhile, the country’s unemployment rate came in at 4.3 percent.

CME Group’s (NASDAQ:CME) FedWatch tool now shows a 90.2 percent probability of a 25 basis point rate cut in September, with a 9.8 percent probability of a 50 basis point reduction.

Bond market turmoil also helped move the gold price this week.

Yields for 30 year US bonds rose to nearly 5 percent midway through the period, their highest level since mid-July, on the back of a variety of concerns, including tariffs, inflation and Fed independence.

Globally the situation was even more tumultuous, with 30 year UK bond yields reaching their highest point since 1998; meanwhile, 30 year bond yields for German, French and Dutch bonds rose to levels not seen since 2011. In Japan, 30 year bond yields hit a record high.

Tariff developments have also created uncertainty this past week.

After an appeals court upheld a ruling that many of Trump’s tariffs are illegal, the president’s administration asked the Supreme Court to fast track its review of the decision.

Going back to gold and silver, their recent price activity is certainly raising questions about what’s next. The broad consensus among the experts focused on the sector is positive, but the metals are beginning to get more mainstream attention too.

Notably, investment bank Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) now has a gold price prediction of US$4,000 by mid-2026, although the firm notes that the yellow metal could rise to nearly US$5,000 if just 1 percent of private investors shift from treasuries to gold.

“If 1 per cent of the privately owned US Treasury market were to flow to gold, the gold price would rise to nearly $5,000 per troy ounce” — Daan Struyven, Goldman Sachs